A tradition that is bound to decline once you start
aborting tens of millions of children.
Last year, on a Sunday, we had lots of little tricksters so I stocked up this year. I love seeing them although after dark, I loathe seeing sullen teenage boys showing up without costumes, holding out a pillowcase. One of the reasons I keep my door locked.
When I was a kid, we never went out after dinner. So we were in for the night at 6:30pm - not 9:00pm.
It was over for me when “kids” 6” taller than me with voices deeper than mine were ringing my doorbell holding pillow cases and not even wearing a costume..........Oh yeah, and the time the pickup truck parked in front of my house and let off a half dozen kids while the adults sat in the back drinking beer didn’t help either.
I would to out and trick or treat for Unicef to raise money for the poor chillrun and have some cocoa and cookies in the church basement, then head back out with my buddies to tip over garbage cans and soap windows. Ah, I miss old time Halloween!
I’d guess I first went trick or treating by myself when I was 7 or 8. That would have been 1960 or so. It was just like the author describes. What a wonderful time to be alive.
Mid-sixties: We would start TOT on Oct. 29 and do it for three nights. Most houses had their candy ready. The word was out on the street about which houses were giving away real chocolate candy. We would hit them up multiple times.
I live in a quiet semi-rural neighborhood that’s off the beaten path. There are several families with pre-teen kids so they’re still trick~or~treating. As long as they do I’ll continue to participate. It helps that there are no roving hordes of outsiders. I’ve lived in areas where you literally batten down the hatches, turn out the lights, and ride out the storm.
Now I know, trick-or-treat is about efficiency and safety. It was once a celebration of inversion; for decades, it was about children testing their freedom. "But I wonder if kids even get that now, when they're being bused into better neighborhoods and not standing disguised for the people they live among," said Morton. "Trick-or-treating was a fleeting taste of independence; now I worry it's just another lesson in capitalism."
BTW, the Tribune site has continued sending data to my computer and slowed it down since I closed the window. I have to run my cleanup programs. I hate that.
This isn’t just about trick-or-treating. There are so many community traditions that just don’t happen anymore. Community parties. Neighborhood block parties. Community Christmas caroling or parties. Halloween trick-or-treating. Neighborhood dinner parties for adults. A lot of the socially cohesive traditions that arose in the Post World War II era (and that were still around when I was a kid growing up in the 1970s) are gradually dying. Its a shame.
Sounds like a terrorist event waiting to happen. It needs to be halted if we want our kids to be safe.
In our neighborhood, the homeowners participating in Halloween hang out on their driveways with beverages for the adults walking with their kids. It’s a big party. I’ve seen three trucks this morning toting golf carts down the street that parents will trick out with scary music and lights to cart the kids through the large neighborhood. We rented three, six person golf carts, covered them with lights and a music system, and my sons have invited all their friends to join them. Everyone is in costume and it’s a blast. The tradition is alive and well here.
In the 70s, we went trick or treating sans adult supervision - that never even occurred to us as being an option.
Now it appears that at least half the kids have a chaperone...many go to indoor trick or treating events at the mall...and I’ve noticed a sharp decline in the number of houses with lit pumpkins, or even porch lights, on Oct 31st.
Most of us don’t really know our neighbors like we used to.
Trick or treating in the 70s was special because, for most of us, it was the only candy we would get all year... *sigh*
Still plenty of it in the sunbelt. It’s gonna be 89 today, excellent trick or treating weather.
I have such good memories trick or treating in the late 60’s and early 70’s. And then there was the big candy swap afterwards where my siblings and I would spread out our candy on the living room floor and swap with each other.
“I’ll give you ten Clark Bars and a baggie of home made popcorn for one of those Milky Way Bars!”
Forward to about 10 years ago, where we used to live. Houses close together again. We gave out stuff to around 100 kids each year. Then we moved to a street that has 100 ft wide lots and the houses are 100 ft from the street. Zero kids.
Halloween isn’t that much fun when your neighbourhood is filled with drugged out crazies.
My parents would expect us to hand over the candy so they could ration them out. But we'd stash away all the good stuff and hand over the "not so good" stuff to be rationed out. Like the Milk Duds and candy corn. They never had any idea just how much candy we actually took in!